Retroversyhttps://retroversy.wordpress.com
A Kaleidoscope Of GeekinessThu, 04 May 2017 21:24:01 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngRetroversyhttps://retroversy.wordpress.com
Disappointmenthttps://retroversy.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/disappointment/
https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/disappointment/#respondThu, 04 May 2017 21:16:46 +0000http://retroversy.wordpress.com/?p=865]]>It’s close to break time and while a couple of the third-years I’ve been teaching are putting the last hand to their self-evaluation forms for the day, the bigger part of the class has devolved into chatter. Given that the subjects of these discussions give me a pretty decent indication of whatever hot teen drama they’ll be plagiarising their next creative writing assignment from, I was keeping an ear out. That’s when I overheard a phrase I’d never expected to hear delivered through a medium other than a crappy Skype connection.

“Gee, I didn’t know you were such a weeaboo.”

That word alone should have been enough of a warning. But it’s not every day you encounter someone as far gone as yourself in your everyday habitat.

“Now that’s a word I didn’t expect to hear in this classroom,” I butt in.

The boys ask me if I watch anime. I, with all the tact and social awareness of a blowfish, take the bait. Almost immediately, I realise how many doors I’ve opened for these scamps to try and slip through.

“You seen Naruto, sir?”

As this point they’re not so much asking as screaming halfway across the classroom.

“A long time ago, yeah.”

Just briefly I remember being around their age and watching Naruto episodes chopped into three parts and chucked onto YouTube, hidden by any means necessary from the fledgling service’s then near-useless copyright protection algorithms. It was my own secret treasure trove, a world that felt like a true home, even if my only company there was a handful of anonymous entities hiding behind meaningless cries of ‘first’ and ‘sasuke 4 the winz’. I was glad that, unlike me back then, these kids had found friends to share their enthusiasm with.

“What about Oreimo, sir?”

Of course.

No matter how often I may like to remind my mum that kids nowadays are used to a heck of a lot more than she could likely ever conceive of, even I am still a bit shocked to hear that dreaded word coming out of the mouth of a fourteen-year old.

“… How the heck do you know about that show?”

That’s when I notice the pit I’ve dug myself into. I’ve just admitted to a class full of sadistic teens that I know of this thing spoken of in the kind of chortle usually only heard when girly mags have been snuck onto school outings. Committed social suicide just to implicitly remind a child how much better my taste in anime is than his.

“Have you seen it? I like it. Especially the ending.”

Far more embarrassed than I, a grown-ass man talking to a teenager on the brink of a testosterone overdose, have any reason to be, I pretend his question is being drowned out by murmurs from elsewhere in the classroom. Unfortunately, it’s not the kind of murmur I’m looking for. The girls in the class wanna know what’s with all the chatter wafting up from the other side. What’s this about a guy marrying his sister? “Apparently, your classmates are into some really messed-up stuff,” I mumble, and look for the nearest chair to collapse on.

I’d never for a second doubted that the type of lecherous, try-hard teen anime seems to ever more be exclusively catering itself toward, really did exist, but I never thought I’d actually meet one in the flesh. Liking Oreimo, or To Love Ru, or Keijo!, or any of the other titles they start dropping in the hope of getting a rise out of me, is something for random creeps on the Internet. It’s not something I ever expected an actual person in my immediate vicinity to admit to. It feels a lot more alienating than it should.

A couple of minutes later, I’m standing in front of the classroom door with a final assignment. Despite my constant reminders, the kids are having a ton of problems understanding the concept of a full sentence, so I’m telling them no one’s allowed to leave the classroom until they can answer a random question with one.

Not entirely coincidentally, the proud weeaboos are the last boys standing.

“This is becoming way too much of a sausage fest,” says the alpha weeaboo.

“What do you mean by that?” I ask him. It’s as good a random question as any.

“Too many dudes here.”

Not a full sentence, so I keep prodding him.

“And why does that make you uncomfortable?”

“I’d prefer a harem.”

Seriously. Is this my punishment?

]]>https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/disappointment/feed/0VefSTMiaquagazeNot All Comic Books, Part 3: Everything Elsehttps://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/not-all-comic-books-part-3-everything-else/
https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/not-all-comic-books-part-3-everything-else/#respondThu, 09 Jun 2016 16:27:14 +0000http://retroversy.wordpress.com/?p=833]]>When a group of disgruntled artists founded Image Comics in the 1990’s, their main reason for doing so was allowing themselves to create characters without the executive meddling that had driven Marvel and DC into a rut. Whether this actually resulted in better superhero stories is up for discussion, though, and Image’s modus operandi soon turned out to lend itself far better to more ambitious projects, similar to the Vertigo imprint DC had implemented in Image’s wake. Nowadays, Image’s focus lies more with more mature-oriented and complex books than with the dubiously iconic superheroes that defined its early days, like Spawn or Savage Dragon. Ironically, many of these books are written by none other than Marvel and DC’s current superstars, who usually do a couple of creator-owned projects on the side while working on the likes of Batman or the X-Men. This would be a bit of a problem for Image if it weren’t for the fact that their very author-friendly policies usually mean that authors tend to stick with them even after they’ve turned their backs on Marvel and DC, with ex-superhero scribes like Brian K. Vaughan (who previously created Runaways for Marvel) or Rick Remender (formerly a writer on Captain America and X-Force) currently providing the publishers with a strong lineup of comics that may not be able to compete with Marvel’s or DC’s in terms of iconicity, but certainly in terms of quality.

Furthermore, the digitalization of the comic book industry has seen the rise of several other publishers featuring creator-owned properties, each occupying their own niche. Archie Comics is a monument in its own right, IDW and Dark Horse mostly issue comic spin offs of popular TV and film franchises like Star Trek or Doctor Who, Zenescope loves its cheesecakey adaptations of beloved fairytales, Boom! Studios’ rising imprint Boom! Box specializes in experimental and ‘gleeful’ comics for all ages, Dynamite is best known for its use of classic pulp heroes and other public domain characters, and Avatar Press… Well, let’s not talk about Avatar Press. Point is, the world of comic publishing is nowadays a lot bigger than just dudes in capes. Indulging in superheroics and the associated clichés, crossovers and continuity car crashes is no longer a prerequisite for enjoying the art of sequential storytelling*. Detectives, thrillers, comedies, dramas or even romances, the boundaries of contemporary comics are ever expanding far beyond the usual nerd sphere of interests, with the border between newsstand comic magazines and upmarket graphic novels being all but eviscerated. The talent independent comic book publishers currently have on the payroll is arguably bigger and more diverse than ever, and here are the best of their best ongoings.

(*) Unless you are European, of course, in which case it was never a prerequisite to begin with.

Archie, you say? The first thing that pops up when googling “status quo”**? That proud monument of safe American values that couldn’t be cool if it meant saving its own life? Yes, thatArchie. After the success of its grim horror spin-off, Afterlife with Archie, the stalwart publisher decided it was time to truly let the 21st century in and rebooted its entire universe under the capable supervision of comics superstars Mark Waid (Kingdom Come, Daredevil) and Fiona Staples (Saga). What could have been a recipe for disaster – especially given the publisher’s track record for trying to be relevant – quickly turned out to be a supremely lovable romp that retained the plucky all-ages appeal of Archie and his friends while planting itself firmly and realistically in the New Tens. Waid allows drama, character development and actual, decompressed plot progression to find its way into Riverdale without ever betraying the dorky charm that Archie stands for, while the consistently excellent art will make you forget DanDeCarlo’s house style in no time. Way to turn a comic that used to be a punchline for many a geek into something that is nigh-impossible to hate.

(**) That is a lie. The first thing that pops up when googling “status quo” is a picture of the band of the same name. Who? Ask your dad.

Deadly Class. Art by Wes Craig.

Deadly Class by Rick Remender and Wes Craig (Image)

Many stories send their protagonists off to a prestigious high school for god-knows-what, but only Deadly Class will make you happy the school you attend(ed) is a just a regular old school. Rescued off the streets by a Yakuza boss’s daughter, Marcus Lopez enrolls at King’s Dominion High School for the Deadly Arts, where he soon loses himself in a spiral of self-loathing, bad drugs and even worse mistakes. It sounds like an easily digestible premise tailor-made for a third-rate ‘dark and mature’ teenage edge-fest, yet Rick Remender’s writing is often so wry and disturbingly absurd, the line between tragedy and comedy becomes virtually non-existent. In stead of ruining Deadly Class‘s many violent twists and turns, however, the humour humanizes its sympathetic cast of characters, provoking readers into a cynical sense of endearment that needs to be experienced in order to be truly understood. Wes Craig’s stylized artwork perfectly encapsulates the Gen X aesthetic of the 1980s, while Lee Loughridge’s bold, fitting use of colour invokes John Higgins’ psychedelic haze of The Killing Joke or Watchmen‘s most cerebral moments. That is some dangerously high praise, yet this comic deserves it. Through its willingness to embrace its own macabre campiness, rather than rejecting it in favour of dishonest grit and angst, Deadly Class achieves a genuineness and synchronicity between its themes, its writing and its looks that make it the best mature comic on today’s stands.

Giant Days. Art by Lissa Treiman.

Giant Days by John Allison, Lissa Treiman and Max Sarin (Boom! Box)

Sometimes, comics don’t have to be particularly original to be great. Giant Days is little more than a sitcom about three college roommates, but like any good comedy, its strengths lie in the quality of its humour, ranging from absurd satire over relatable awkwardness to razor-sharp sarcasm. John Allison, known for his webcomic Scary-Go-Round, crafts his dialogue like a cineast paints his frames, carefully fine-tuned for maximum cohesion and pseudo-philosophical wit, constantly dragging his overdramatic characters through everyday situations they are too self-avowedly intellectual to handle. Virtually everything Esther, Susan and Daisy indulge in, be it relationships or exams, very quickly devolves into a farcical disaster both hilariously outlandish and painfully relatable. That is, if you’re a highly principled, overdramatic, deluded, social nightmare such as myself, at least.

I often wish I could be as shamelessly saccharine as Lumberjanes is, kicking about with reckless abandon and wide-eyed curiosity in a world where conflicts hardly ever last longer than a single issues and bad guys are mostly just misunderstood oafs trying to make a friend. While the sheer volume of its brightness might net accusations of ‘trying too hard’ here and there, I think Lumberjanes‘ wholesome dedication to its cause is admirable. It’s never preachy, overly self-congratulating or wish-fulfilling despite being the red cloth on the reactionary nerd’s bull, staying at all times fully devoted to being what it is, rather than what it should be. Lumberjanes refuses to let its diversity be its main attraction, in stead regarding it as it should be regarded: not as an obligation for amassing goodwill, but as an undeniable fact of life. This allows for the book’s continuously rotating writers and artists to espouse the various other draws that are distinctly its own – its splendid dialogue, its joyous absurdity or its often adorable reinterpretations of folklore, for instance. While not all its issues are quite up to snuff, the fact that Lumberjanes hasn’t lost any of its creativity even well into its late twenties (issues, not years) is a testament to its quality. It’s unapologetically girly in al its facets, but only a joyless jerkwad would hold that against it.

Paper Girls. Art by Cliff Chiang.

Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang (Image)

Ah, the eighties. That glorious era of groundbreaking adventure comedies, horror fads, bomber jackets, kids in movies swearing like sailors and scaremongering think pieces about the end of print media. Paper Girls has all of these, and more. While Brian K. Vaughan (Runaways, Y: The Last Man) is nowadays mostly known for his still-ongoing, grandiose space opera Saga, also published by Image, his latest project with artist Cliff Chiang (Wonder Woman) is way more up my alley, a tongue-in-cheek homage to the blockbusters of yore, starring four teen girls with attitude in the midst of an alien invasion. People familiar with Vaughan’s work will know what to expect – cliffhangers at every turn, wild mood swings and general creative wackiness – though as usual, the dialogue is where Paper Girls truly shines. With their hilariously outdated pop culture references and dorky snark, Vaughan’s characters act both their age and their era, talking smack and waving guns around one page and awkwardly suggesting their friends stop swearing so much the next, because they’re “trying too hard to sound cool”. Whether Paper Girls will end up as epic and sprawling as Vaughn’s better-known stories remains to be seen, but its most recent developments seem to indicate that the writer’s signature sudden shifts of setting are back in full swing already. So rather than emulating a single 80’s adventure movie, it seems hell-bent on emulating them all.

The Wicked + The Divine. Art by Jamie McKelvie.

The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie (Image)

Most of the comics featured here have simple, easily understandable premises; pitches you can explain to potential new readers in a single phrase. Not The Wicked + The Divine. Kieron Gillen (Young Avengers) channels his love of 60 years of pop music and penchant for symbolic, intellectual prose, into a comic that is equal parts satire and conspiracy thriller, a dazzling look into both the shameless excess and the importance of idol culture, by turning pop stars into literal gods of pantheons from all over the world. The result is a story as meaningful as it is conventionally entertaining, with spectacular battles between super-powered expies of Kanye West (unsurprisingly, after all, he is a god), Kate Bush (apparently a big fan of Ōkami), and that guy from Daft Punk (no, no, not that guy, that other one) and reflections on fame, sexuality, divinity or death in equal measure. Contrary to most modern portrayals of the deities of yore, let alone of pop stars, Gillen doesn’t hesitate to expose his characters for the often vengeful, manipulative hedonists they are. Yet even these gods used to be human, and hidden underneath their escapades lie a cast of interesting personalities with hopes and fears that puts them back with their feet on the ground***. With its frequent shout-outs and meta-commentary, The Wicked + The Divine is a comic with one foot in its own world, and one in ours. People may joke about how eerily precognitive it has proven at times, but that is only an unfortunate side effect of how well aware Gillen is of today’s society. Despite harkening back to the era of ‘grands’ like Bowie and Prince, who seem to be leaving this world behind one by one, The Wicked + The Divine couldn’t have been written in any other era than the now.

(***) Except Woden, he’s just a dick.

Tomboy. Art by Mia Goodwin.

Tomboy by Mia Goodwin (Action Lab/Danger Zone)

Tomboy is the magical girl deconstruction that makes Puella Magi Madoka Magica look like Winx Club. Mia Goodwin splendidly juxtaposes her adorable artwork to Addison Brody’s descent into madness after the murder of her best-friend-slash-boyfriend Nick, while her medical examiner dad’s obsessive attempts to solve the case through legal means leaves her in the care of her ex-vigilante grandfather and a particularly bloodthirsty delusion of her favourite anime character, Princess Cheery Cherry. What starts off as a Veronica Mars-esque teen thriller quickly develops into a violent, deranged nightmare that is as heartbreaking as it is horrifying. Goodwin manages to cram a lot of content in very little space, focusing not only on Addy’s crusade, but on the exploits of her father and the crooked detectives chasing after her as well, without ever feeling like it’s moving too fast. Though plagued by an erratic release schedule and the obscurity of its publisher, Tomboy deserves to be its creator’s gateway to mainstream successes one of the most talented rising stars on the comic book filament. Oh, and have I mentioned that the first issue is free?

As usual, these magnificent books are just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even gotten to mentioning Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda’s gorgeous Monstress, Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s outrageous Sex Criminals or the excellent continuation of Avatar: The Last Airbender by Gene Yuen Lang and Guruhiro. But hey, we need to draw the line somewhere, and these comics, along with the ones I discussed in parts one and two of this feature, should give you enough to read until DC decides its time to reboot its continuity yet again. Excelsior!

Wait, that’s not DC, isn’t it?

]]>https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/not-all-comic-books-part-3-everything-else/feed/0Schermafbeelding 2016-06-09 om 18.39.33aquagazeArchie. Art by Fiona Staples.Deadly Class. Art by Wes Craig.Giant Days. Art by Lissa Treiman.Lumberjanes. Art by Noelle Stevenson.Paper Girls. Art by Cliff Chiang.The Wicked + The Divine. Art by Jamie McKelvie.Tomboy. Art by Mia Goodwin.Not All Comic Books, Part 2: Marvelhttps://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/not-all-comics-part-2-marvel/
https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/not-all-comics-part-2-marvel/#respondMon, 30 May 2016 20:01:49 +0000http://retroversy.wordpress.com/?p=804]]>Let’s be perfectly fair here, the chances that Captain America really was a Hydra double agent all this time are non-existent. But it’s the thought that counts. Like the WWE and its fans, comic publishers and their readers seem to have a mutual understanding going on: They both know that the status quo will reign superior in the end, but in order for fans to at least pretend that the stakes are real, they expect the publisher to do the same. When people fumed at Marvel over the infamous “One More Day” story arc, they didn’t necessarily do so because they couldn’t accept Spider-Man’s marriage to Mary Jane Watson being annulled, or his identity being made a secret again – such changes could be ‘fixed’ again in a few years. It’s the fact that Spider-Man had to make a deal with the devil for these changes to happen; that Marvel preferred betraying everything their most beloved character stood for to return to the safety of a young, single Peter Parker, that pissed people off.

What could people possibly dislike about this epic twist?

That is why the Captain America twist matters to fans. Steve Rogers being a Hydra double agent can be fixed, or revealed to have been a fluke all along. Yet the image of Steve Rogers gazing down at his bound and gagged victim, muttering ‘Hail Hydra’ to the faces of thousands of fans who idolize him, that’s damn near irreparable. It might have worked in the 70s, but nowadays, people take their heroes a bit more seriously, and they expect publishers to do the same.

Nevertheless, while the iron grip of its editorial board on its writers is loosening ever so slightly, Marvel seems to remain dedicated in the belief a month without causing some sort of stir is a lost month. Compared to DC’s efforts, many of the headlines Marvel have been making recently – such as elaborating on fan-favourite ideas and steadily replacing their classic Avengers line-up of white dudes with a far more diverse slate of heroes – have done great things for the company, the fact remains that their over-reliance on supposedly large and allegedly status-quo-shattering crossover events doesn’t make their universe a very alluring place for newcomers. Unlike DC, Marvel has more of a tendency to go with whatever seems to be working right now, and while this may lead to their universe often feeling fresh, exciting and reflective of real-world values and issues, it also makes it rather hard for people who only know Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and co. from the movies to latch on. While Spider-Gwen and Silk are two of Marvel’s best currently ongoing books, for instance, they also require at least a basic understanding of Spider-Verse, the cross-over event that spawned them, which in itself had ties to characters and events dating all the way back to 2001. And though Wikipedia may work miracles, at one point, the people who don’t feel like buying every single Marvel comic in existence are gonna feel left out.

So why do people still bother with these things? Because comic books are still hella fun, and luckily, there are some brave writers and artists left who try their very best to make their comics accessible to people who’ve never read one in their entire lives, corporate meddling and continuity be damned. These are the best of the best of Marvel’s current line-up.

Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona et al.

Let’s get the big one out of the way first, obviously. Kamala Khan has become such a phenomenon since her first appearance in 2014, she now sits comfortably amongst the very A-list of Marvel’s heroes with no end to her victory parade in sight. And it’s easy to see why. Despite being the poster child for Marvel’s diversity initiative, Kamala is essentially in the 2010s what Peter Parker was in the 60s: a perennially unlucky urban high school student blessed with both an impressive intellect and a wry sense of wit, who is an outsider at school, yet a beloved superhero on the side. Amidst all the cosmic chaos and reality-bending shenanigans, Kamala is the essence of Marvel distilled into a single character: a superhuman who is human first and super second, escapist, yet flawed, and a character who remains distinct despite the fact that anyone can identify with her. She is both pop-culture fangirl and phenomenon – a far cry from the brooding, reluctant hero, yet someone who enjoys her adventures as much as audiences enjoy reading them.

Writer G. Willow Wilson – herself a Muslim woman, like Kamala – has the character’s appeal down to a T. Her storytelling in Ms. Marvel is simple and straightforward, giving characters ample breathing room to develop and the frequently wacky situations Kamala ends up in time to settle without ever letting the time-honoured superhero tropes go stale. While Kamala’s adventures often tie into her roots as an Inhuman – a race of metahumans who have been part of the Marvel universe for decades – and her admiration for the previous heroine to hold the Ms. Marvel name, Wilson treats all these aspects as if they were created specifically for her own stories, organically weaving them into her narrative so it demands the bare minimum of prior knowledge to be enjoyed. Adrian Alphona’s adorable artwork, riddled with references and funny background events, is a perfect match for Wilson’s dialogue, making their Ms. Marvel the very blueprint for superhero comics in the year 2016.

(*) Don’t mind the whole ‘volume’ thing, all these comics follow a single, continuous storyline. Marvel just really loves restarting its numbering every other month, as you will notice with some other books as well.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by Ryan North & Erica Henderson

If you’ve seen any funny comic book captions pop up online lately, chances are likely they’re from The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. While Doreen Green’s furry alter-ego has become infamous for hilariously curb-stomping the Marvel Universe’s most powerful villains, she’d never actually starred in her own series before until Ryan North and Erica Henderson took her to college in this at least ninety percent ridiculous romp of a book. Fittingly, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is a mostly episodic affair, featuring Squirrel Girl cleaning up dangerous threats the actual Avengers are too busy to handle, even if said threats include the likes of Doctor Doom. A character whose entire schtick revolves around being, well, unbeatable, can get old quick, though North merrily skirts around that issue by going all-out on the absurdity, focusing mostly on Doreen beating her enemies using elaborate schemes, pacifism or just straight up silliness.

Yet ultimately, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl‘s biggest strength is managing to rise above just how easy its premise is. A Squirrel Girl solo book might have just as well relied entirely on people finding squirrels inherently funny, yet North makes sure that every single squirrel or nut-related joke actually deserves being laughed at. The variety of humour on display ranges from sharp meta-commentary to deadpan absurdity, and while Erica Henderson’s exaggerated, cartoony art might not be everyone’s cup of tea (it certainly isn’t mine), its colourful retro charm does fit the character and her antics well. Being primarily a parody comic, it’ll come as no surprise that The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl crosses over with about every Marvel character alive, from the obvious to the obscure, which might give casual fans some trouble. On the other hand, in a comic where the heroine argues about grammar with a planet-eating giant, Thor being a woman or Loki being a good guy all of a sudden will probably be the least of your worries.

Doctor Strange by Jason Aaron & Chris Bachalo

Doctor Strange (Vol. 4) #1-ongoing

Jason Aaron is excellent at writing epic high fantasy stories that feel like they’re part of a much bigger world, so what better Marvel character to have him write than the guy whose everyday business consists of battling demons from the 44th dimension with the mighty battle-axe of Zanador? Doctor Strange has always been a bit of a loner, watching over the Marvel Universe from afar and only interfering when the plot demands for a deus ex machina, making his solo book an excellent start for people who don’t want to be bothered with too much baggage. No matter how grand the universes that Stephen Strange resides in may be, Aaron wisely takes the good doctor back to basics and filters all the world-building through his humble character voice, portraying him as a sort of wacky uncle taking readers along for mystical adventures in worlds they don’t need to understand to admire. It would be a bit shallow if it weren’t so damn imaginative.

What sets Doctor Strange apart from other Marvel books most of all, however, is how massive its scale is from the get-go. Befitting of a character who regularly confronts cosmic horrors in his own kitchen, the very first plot arc of Aaron’s run sees Stephen Strange immediately squaring off against an alien cult hell-bent on purging magic from the galaxy. Chris Bachalo’s gorgeously detailed, colourful artwork amps up the heavy metal factor to eleven, delivering one impressive, psychedelic vista after another on a monthly basis, while his monster design is second to none. Dragging the Sorcerer Supreme back into the spotlight after more than 15 years of being the go-to punching bag for whatever big threat the more conventional Marvel heroes are currently fighting might have reeked of an obligation, what with the movie coming up, but in Aaron and Bachalo’s capable hands, Doctor Strange has become one of the best books in Marvel’s current line-up. Also, no Benedict Cumberbatch!

Or else…

All-New Wolverine by Tom Taylor, David Lopez et al. (Issues #1-ongoing), aka Orphan Black, but with Wolverine. Or rather, with X-23, that female Wolverine clone who was all over the place in the mid-2000s. Wolverine’s no-nonsense attitude is a nice break from the snark-filled teen drama many of her colleagues go through, and Tom Taylor expertly balances action and character development with bits and bops of the self-aware humour no Marvel comic can go without. While All-New Wolverine builds on X-23’s established and very elaborate backstory – as well as on the fact that the original Wolverine is dead at the moment – everything you’ll need to know to start following this adventure is summarized on the first page. Spoiler: She was created to be a weapon. Quelle surprise!

Spider-Gwen by Jason Latour & Robbi Rodriguez (Edge of Spider-Verse #2, Spider-Gwen Vol. 1 #1-5 & Vol. 2, #1-ongoing), aka what if it was Gwen Stacy who got bit by the radioactive spider and got to wear one of the most kick-ass superhero costumes ever designed? Set in a beautifully distinct neon-punk universe courtesy of penciler Robbie Rodriguez, Spider-Gwen quickly transcends its novelty status as it builds a universe entirely of its own. Its thematic complexity can easily compete with books set in the ‘main’ Marvel Universe, though for what is supposed to be a story set in a different dimension, Gwen sure loves to interact with Earth-616’s Spider-heroes a lot.

Black Widow by Mark Waid & Chris Samnee (Issues #1-ongoing), aka that one chick played by Scarlett Johansson, from the movies! Except this time she, like, actually feels things and stuff! And it’s written by the best storytelling duo currently around! And the entire first issue is an explosive chase sequence that makes Mad Max: Fury Road look like Wacky Races! And there’s only three issues out yet, so I don’t know what else to say. Awkward!

Anyway, next time, we’ll take a look at those weird comic book publishers that make books that are not about people in spandex punching things or something. They exist! And they have nothing to do with the original goal of this feature, but who gives a hoot about any of that? Comic books are awesome, superheroes or not.

]]>https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/not-all-comics-part-2-marvel/feed/0(1366x768) Spider-Gwen wallpaper - Imguraquagaze160525115909-captain-america-hail-hydra-780x439Ms._Marvel_Vol_3_3_Wu_VariantnutsDoctor_Strange_Vol_4_1_TextlessSpider-Gwen_Vol_1_3_TextlessNot All Comic Books, Part 1: DC Comicshttps://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/not-all-comic-books-part-1-dc-comics/
https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/not-all-comic-books-part-1-dc-comics/#respondFri, 27 May 2016 19:21:16 +0000http://retroversy.wordpress.com/?p=701]]>This week has not been a good week to be a comic book fan. Hot on the tail of DC’s desperate attempt to abort its much-maligned ‘New 52’ continuity into its fourth reboot in ten years time – a misguided debacle that includes, amongst others, the revelation that the Joker is actually three people and that Dr. Manhattan of all people created the New 52 – Marvel turned Captain America into a literal nazi and then announced yet another rebranding, which for some inexplicable reason bears the same name as their rebranding from three years ago. Indeed, the comics industry showed off its absolute worst this week, and understandably, all that corporate bullshit led a lot of people to as the same, simple question:

Why do people even bother?

It’s a good question. Why do people bother keeping up with superhero comics? No matter how often they like to shake up the status quo for cheap shock value, nothing really matters: no hero stays dead, or evil, or de-powered and replaced. Yet somehow, Marvel and DC keep doing it. Just buying a comic book featuring your favourite hero is not even an option anymore. If you’re lucky enough to even be up to date with who’s who and where’s where, chances are still likely you’ll end up smack dab in the middle of yet another crossover, demanding you buy a dozen other books to even understand what’s going on. It’s all a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Pictured: The worst idea ever.

So why bother? Well, because superhero comics are pretty damn fun when they’re great. Amidst all the usual comics nonsense, parts of Marvel and later, DC as well, have been trying their hardest to make comic books colourful and fun, hilarious and inclusive, poignant and provocative, or even artistically ground-breaking again. While the Big Two’s suits drown their Batmen and Captains America in a mailstorm of continuity and corporate sensationalism, heroes on the fringe of Marvel and DC’s universes are mostly left to do whatever they please. As a result, spin-offs and comics featuring lesser-known or novelty characters often end up better than the big blockbuster books everyone is talking about. If you want to get into comics, but don’t like all the lousy executive meddling and sensationalism, give these currently ongoing or recently finished comics a shot. First up are the highlights of DC Comics‘ current lineup.

Ever since the company launched its New 52 reboot in 2011, DC has been trying desperately to get its mojo and its fans back, usually to no avail: Fans disliked the new, grimmer interpretations of Superman and Wonder Woman, beloved characters like the Teen Titans and the Green Lantern were left in the hands of incompetent writers, interesting characters got ditched like dirt (Batwoman!) while characters no one cares about got their own books (Larfleeze? Red Hood and the Outlaws?) and attempts to bring back elements that made the old DC Universe so beloved only ended up making the whole thing even more convoluted. At times, it seemed like the entire company survived solely on Scott Snyder’s run on Batman, and even that book was a bit too self-indulgent and far too obsessed with shaking up the status quo, only to restore it mere months later. Luckily, some comics with the word ‘Bat’ in the title did in fact manage to ride its wave all the way to greatness:

Batgirl, by Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart & Babs Tarr

Gail Simone’s run on Batgirl, which started off the character’s adventures post-reboot,was the perfect example of a great story constantly, forcibly derailed by obligations to fulfill vis-à-vis the ‘main’ Batman storyline. In the end, Simone got so fed up with the mandatory suffering she had to subject Barbara Gordon to that she quit after her 30th issue, leaving DC to sit down and think what they had wrought. And miraculously, this led them to make one of the very few good decisions they’ve made these last few years: They allowed Batgirl to have fun again. Simone’s replacements Brenden Fletcher and Cameron Stewart moved Babs to Burnside, the ‘hip’ neighborhood of Gotham, gave her a snazzy new suit and a newfound cheery disposition and made a lot of whiny manbabies very angry.

Despite starting at issue #31, Fletcher and Stewart’s run on Batgirl is a standalone story, with its own villains, themes, supporting cast and character arc for Barbara. Aside from one-issue appearances by Commissioner-Gordon-as-Batman and Dick Grayson the secret agent – both of which are totally a thing now – and an entirely optional tie-in issue to the big Endgame arc, Batgirl is entirely its own beast, which fits perfectly with its aim to appeal to young girls who have been turned off from comic books for various obvious reasons. While the comic sometimes seems like it’s trying just a bit too hard to be ‘hip’ and ‘cool’, the stories are often breezy and optimistic without sacrificing complexity or maturity, and Babs Tarr’s adorable artwork makes them worth reading for the pretty colours alone. Anyone who loves cool gals kicking butt will be right at home in Batgirl‘s Burnside.

Sad but true: The lion’s part of interesting developments in the DC Universe took place in Gotham City, and the fact that even the adventures of a bunch of high school kids in Batman’s city were more interesting than, say, the extraterrestrial exploits of the Green Lantern Corps is quite telling. Gotham Academy is all about the Scooby-Doo-esque exploits of Olive Silverlock, an outcast who gets roped into solving paranormal mysteries happening at and around her prestigious high school, all the while running from her mysterious past. While Olive’s adventures take place far from the usual goings-on in the DC Universe, various members of Batman’s rogues gallery pop up in all kinds of cameos, with the Caped Crusader himself occasionally swooping in to be the grumpy adult on the Detective Club’s parties.

Due to these very loose ties to the main Batman continuity, Gotham Academy is a great fit for people familiar with the Bat-canon from movies or cartoons, but not up to date with its latest developments. What Gotham Academy does regularly cross over with, however, are Brenden Fletcher’s other two DC titles: Black Canary and the afore mentioned Batgirl. Barbara Gordon regularly drops by the Gotham Academy library, while Olive and co. will regularly namedrop companies or bands that play important roles in Fletcher’s version of Gotham City. It’s continuity done right – tiny references that will make dedicated readers feel part of a larger world, while flying right past newcomers, who remain entirely unaffected. This, combined with its intriguing arc plot, lovable characters and endearing retro vibe – anyone having any fond memories of stories featuring mysterious boarding schools will get an instant injection of nostalgia – make Gotham Academy worth checking out for anyone with any fondness for Batman’s world.

Or else…

Midnighter by Steve Orlando and Aco (Issues #1-ongoing), aka a gay, bloodthirstier Batman hunts down the mysterious stranger who robbed his boss and is selling her dangerous tech off to people with questionable motives. Despite the character being a leftover from an obscure, ill-fated team that got its own series at the start of the New 52, Orlando does a good job at reintroducing new readers to Midnighter’s world without treating them like preschoolers. Unfortunately, frequent crossovers make it hard to enjoy his adventures without being at least marginally aware of what’s going on elsewhere in the DC Universe.

Black Canary by Brenden Fletcher & Annie Wu (Issues #1-#12), aka a super-soldier finds out she’s a pretty great singer and joins an up-and-coming indie band as they tour the States, with trouble in their wake. Another one by Fletcher, and similar in style to his other works, Black Canary has the added benefit of being a limited series, with a distinct beginning, middle and end. Though Black Canary is an established DC character, this series is her very first solo adventure in the ‘New 52’ universe, allowing new readers to hop on in without any prior knowledge – though reading it alongside Batgirl and Gotham Academy is certainly is a plus. Hey, at least having to read three great books to get the definitive experience beats having to read seven lame ones to be able to puzzle together a story that still won’t make a lick of sense. It doesn’t get much better than this, folks.

DC Universe Bombshells by Marguerite Bennett and Marguerite Sauvage (Issues #1-ongoing), aka what if the DC Universe took place during World War II and all the men were off fighting? Bombshells is a fun-tastic anthology series featuring alternate-universe versions of DC’s most famous female characters in the 1940s. And nazis! The stories vary wildly in nature and scope, yet the tone is always light-hearted and endearingly pulpy, while the series’ what-if setting allows it to ignore mainstream comic book bullshit, and even make some fan-favourite fantasies, such as the Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy pairing, a reality. Also Batwoman is a professional baseball player. Get it? Because she’s bat-woman? This is the kind of greatness you can expect, folks.

Next time, we’ll take a look at those evil es jay double you’s who generally kick DC’s ass when it comes to innovation, diversity and just straight-up knowing how to have fun, but might actually be worse at them in terms of overblown crossovers and pointless rebranding: It’s Marvel, baby!

Just a quick heads-up: This blog post will be discussing themes relating to child sexual abuse. If you’re uncomfortable with such topics, please proceed with caution. Also, some of the images in this post are probably not suited for work.

There’s an adorable little manga I like named Gisèle Alain, about a precocious thirteen-year-old rich girl in 19th century France who inherits an apartment building and spends her days helping its tenants with all sorts of odd jobs, from plain old deliveries to live-changing affairs. More so than because of its gorgeous artwork and lovingly represented (if somewhat animefied) historical setting, I love it because of how nuanced it is for a slice-of-life. Rather than a perpetually happy-go-lucky manic pixie dream girl, Gisèle is an actual character with actual feelings, and the manga loves to explore the ramifications of her relentless desire to fix other people’s problems, whether these people actually want her to or not. Sometimes, everything turns out just fine, but sometimes it goes horribly wrong, and Gisèle has to deal with the consequences. It injects what could have been a run-of-the-mill slice-of-life with actual character, a strong sense of continuity, and most of all, a surprising moralistic bent.

Gisèle Alain is never preachy, but it does love to explore the ethics of good intentions. What is the right thing to do when you genuinely believe you know better than other people what is best for them? Is it correct to help those who don’t want to be helped? Is it wrong to let someone help you at their own expense? Almost every character in Gisèle Alain struggles with these questions in some capacity, yet there is no character who embodies them better than Colette.

The third chapter of Gisèle Alain introduces readers to Colette, a woman who moves into Gisèle’s apartment block after being chased from her previous residence for a crime she (allegedly) did not commit. Gisèle almost immediately starts to look up to her, but Eric, Gisèle’s assistant and surrogate older brother, is a lot less smitten with his new neighbour. The reason for his suspicion soon becomes obvious: Colette is a cabaret dancer. Being a sheltered nobleman’s daughter, Gisèle has no idea what a cabaret is, but the fact that her new friend dances for a living excites her tremendously. Figuring Gisèle deserves to know about her line of work, Colette decides to give her the grand tour of the city’s red light district.

Mind you, Gisèle is only thirteen years old, so naturally Eric is not okay with this. Unfortunately for him, Gisèle makes a sport out of ignoring everything he says, so soon enough, she gets to meet Colette’s colleagues, who tease Gisèle when she blushes upon learning that cabaret is “like opera, but naked”. In order to cheer her up, Colette asks her if she wants to know what cabaret is like. Gisèle says yes, and Colette complies. It’s a scene that would be outstandingly objectionable in pretty much any other manga, but in Gisèle Alain, it somehow works, culminating in an enthusiastic round of applause by the titular character.

It works because without denying the fact that it is by all means a highly questionable thing to do, mangaka Sui Kasai focuses on the beauty and allure of Colette’s performance rather than on its eroticism, and Gisèle’s appreciation of it, the nature of which they somewhat deliberately leave ambiguous. However, it doesn’t end there…

So yeah. Colette, a grown woman, kisses Gisèle, a thirteen-year-old, full on the lips. When Eric arrives to pick her up and sees the lipstick marks on Gisèle mouth, Colette teases him by saying ‘she might have overdone it’ and that what she did is ‘a secret between girls’. Eric responds by slapping her in the face, stating that ‘she’s just a kid’. Owch.

Who can blame him, though? The fact remains that Colette has done a pretty reprehensible thing. She has effectively abused a child’s innocence to expose her to sexual acts she is too young to consent to. There’s a discussion to be had about whether Gisèle Alain‘s portrayal of Colette, a lesbian cabaret dancer, as predatory (and polyamorous, but more about that later) is nuanced enough to escape some very toxic presuppositions about LGBT people and sex workers, but that’s a question for another time. What I wanna talk about now is the way in which Gisèle Alian invites its readers to evaluate the ethics of Colette’s actions based on her good intentions.

After all, the manga makes it very obvious that Colette does know that she cannot prey on Gisèle. She didn’t do the things she did out of lust, she did them out of genuine concern. She introduced Gisèle to her world, because she took pity on the girl’s naivité and wanted to give her an opportunity to explore her sexuality, because she felt Gisèle was ripe enough for that sort of thing. It’s impossible to tell if Colette wouldn’t have done the things she did if Gisèle hadn’t expressed interest in her line of work, let alone if she’d chosen not to see Colette dance, knowing full well that it’d involve nudity, or if she’d expressed her discomfort with what had happened up until then. Yet none of that really matters. I am not a legal expert, or a child psychologist, or an expert on what is acceptable sexual behaviour involving minors. What interests me is how Colette’s ostensibly unethical actions are framed in such a way that they fit within the manga’s overall, nuanced explorations of intent as a benchmark for morality.

The latest chapter teaches us a bit more about Colette’s ethics. When Gisèle — once again as gullible as they come — tells Colette’s girlfriend Marie that she saw Colette going out with another woman, Marie hires her to find out whether Colette is cheating on her. In the end, it turns out that Colette isn’t having one affair, but three. Yet when Gisèle brings all her girlfriends together and they ask Colette to pick one, Colette answers that she loves all of them equally. She was just too scared of telling them that she loves other people as well.

The parallels with the earlier chapter are rather obvious. Once again, Colette does a bad thing, once again she does acknowledge that she did a bad thing, yet once again her intentions were nothing but good. All she wanted was to make her girlfriends happy by sharing her love with them, while keeping her infidelity a secret so that wouldn’t make them sad either (getting serious Her vibes here, now that I think about it). Unlike after her first meeting with Gisèle, things turn out just fine and dandy for Colette this time, as her girlfriends laugh off her response as ‘typical’ and then proceed to celebrate Gisèle’s birthday.

If they all end up in a happy, five-way polyamorous relationship remains to be seen, but the idea that all the girls acknowledge Colette’s justification for her actions as ‘typical’ does tell us a lot about her character. One of the girls even tells Gisèle “I don’t know if you should call it cheating. That’s just how Colette is”. They’ve come to expect her to do bad things for good reasons, because in spite of the interesting discussions to be had about her behavior, Colette is a fairly simple soul. Everything she does, she does for love. She is a person in love with love, and she’ll do anything to get people to enjoy the beauty of love.

That is eventually also why, in my opinion, having her character be a sex worker works. Colette isn’t an exotic dancer because she is — pardon my language — a ‘slut’, nor does she sleep around because cheating would be in her nature as a sex worker. She chose her profession because spreading the joy of love and sex is her entire reason for existing. That of course doesn’t justify some of the shit she pulls, but it does fit perfectly within the manga’s greater central themes. Colette constantly crosses all sorts of boundaries, but her innocence and good intentions make readers ponder these boundaries. They don’t justify her infractions, but they do make her human.

2015 sure felt like a textbook example of a lousy sequel. It didn’t fix any of 2014’s problems, in stead trying to mask the incompetence that brought forth these disasters with ever more ridiculous plot twists and pointless spectacle. Who directed this crap? Donald Trump? What a waste of time.

Anyway, 2015 was a year in which borders — both physical and ideological — dominated the news. A year in which the relentless arrogance of western imperialism and intolerance came back to bite us in the ass and we just re-elected the same cowards and clowns responsible to keep dragging us further down into a gaping maw of fear, hatred and selfishness. A year in which fascism in the United States became a tangible prospect, in which people proudly marched the streets to defend their right to smugly offend other people and in which many a politician, journalist or internet crank spent tons of time and money on making sure we’re giving terrorists of all creeds and cultures everything they want. But hey, we survived. I survived. I survived, and all I got was this lousy handful of things that got me through these sad, sad 365 days.

Life is Strange

Games of the year

Or rather game of the year because fuck buying games at full price

Life is Strange showed me once and for all what a game truly needs to immerse players in its world. Not scale, photorealistic graphics, or thousands of sidequests, but the simple pleasure of being able to take in every small detail of the beautifully scenic town of Arcadia Bay, interacting with everyday objects and hearing protagonist Max Caulfield’s dorkily sarcastic thoughts on them even if they have no impact on its story whatsoever. Blessed with well-fleshed out characters, excellent sound design and delightfully clever twists and turns, Life is Strange used its episodic structure to its advantage, keeping me well-invested in its engaging storyline until the very end. While occasionally dulled by the frankly rather ungrateful nitpickings of a somewhat misguided fanbase, ultimately, Life is Strange’s legacy will be one of genuine depth and understated beauty. Most video games drop the ball long before the credits roll, but Life is Strange should have lasted forever.

And also…

Films of the year

These didn’t make me want to stand up and go do something else after five minutes

Holy crap, guys, we finally got that Star Wars sequel. Sure, it may be a few decades late and produced as little more than a cynical cash grab from Disney, but by the maker, didn’t Star Wars: The Force Awakens resurrect the desperate nerd within me once again. An almost perfect blend of classic filmmaking expertise and modern-day sass, The Force Awakens somehow managed to be more faithful to the original Star Wars (as in, A New Hope) than most actual remakes and get away with it thanks to some clever twists and unexpected subversions of our expectations. Yet most of all, it gave us characters both beloved and fresh, from John Boyega’s twitchy turncoat Stormtrooper Finn to Daisy Ridley’s Rey, a character who will undoubtedly inspire generations to follow. Yet the biggest surprise of them all was Kylo Ren, whose very nature is both the movie’s biggest spoiler — though not in the way you’d expect — and the core of what sets The Force Awakens apart from the original trilogy: It’s a movie that is, essentially, about following up on a heroic, world-changing event that happened over thirty years ago. It’s not a new A New Hope. Of course not. But there is no shame in being at least a worthy successor.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Speaking of great sequels to films made several decades ago, hell yeah Mad Max: Fury Road! A colourful, two-hour long adrenaline rush filled to the brim with ridiculous stunts, gigantic explosions and people proudly named ‘Toast the Knowing’, Fury Road is vile feminist propaganda artistic nonsense that would make Lewis Carroll blush, but most of all, an ode to fun. Hidden beneath its high-octane struggle between good and a rather physically unappealing evil is a megaton (get it?) of world building, which leaves you to pretty much make up the story for yourself while the movie can concern itself with far more important things such as guys in footie pajamas shooting fire out of their electric guitars. Watching Mad Max: Fury Road might drive you a little mad yourself, but don’t worry, it’s quite nice over here. What a lovely day. What a lovely day!

And also…

Spectre, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jupiter Ascending, have I mentioned that I have terrible taste in film yet?

TV shows of the year

Those things you watch on your laptop at one in the morning

Last year, I wrote a bunch of crap about how much Game of Thrones can go die in a pit somewhere and boy howdy, it sure did make sure I won’t be revising my opinion any time soon, huh? Anyway, in stead of watching HBO’s million-dollar argument for why being overrun with invincible ice zombies might be the most favorable outcome for Westeros, you could watch something actually entertaining, like, say, iZombie! How do you shake up the police procedural, one of the most boring, repetitive genres in television history? Simple: You make one of the detectives a friendly neigbourhood zombie who eats the brains of murder victims to relive their memories. Unfortunately, Liv (played by Rose McIver, the yellow ranger from Power Rangers RPM) also takes on the victims’ personality traits and quirks, turning her into a different colourful personage every episode. Throughout iZombie‘s two seasons so far, McIver has played Liv as, amongst others, a trash-talking basketball coach, a troubled stalker, a cheesy local vigilante, a melancholic country singer and a womanizing painter to often hilarious results, yet the show doesn’t shy away from bringing some depth to its constant wit. The rather formulaic murder mysteries are sprinkled with excellent character journeys and a simultaneously ridiculous and surprisingly excellent (Evil energy drinks! Fancy brain carpaccio! Undead rock stars!) arc plot. If you’re looking for an endearing show that can take your mind off the gravity and cynicism that seems to infest ‘quality’ television nowadays, iZombie is your show to go.

iZombie

Also of note this year, Netflix’s strong serving of exclusive content, ranging from the delightfully kooky yet far too short Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, to Marvel’s first foray into proper live-action television superheroics since, like, that campy 1960’s Hulk show with Lou Feringo. While both blessed with excellent performances, tangible tension, nuanced drama and a gritty atmosphere, Daredevil and Jessica Jones both left me a bit underwhelmed. The former seemed almost scared of being a superhero show, at times feeling like one of those boring crime shows your dad watches in stead of focusing on what makes The Man Without Fear special. Jessica Jones, on the other hand, absolutely nailed the unicity of Brian Michael Bendis’ original series, with its jaded comedy and the disturbing antics of the The Tenth Doctor On Copious Amounts of Cocaine The Purple Man, but suffers from some pacing issues. In stead of letting Jessica deal with some superhero-related mysteries, building up tension, before facing her off against Kilgrave, Jessica Jones revealed its protagonist’s disturbing past (or at least a painfully compressed version of it) and its villain’s perverse nature almost immediately, leaving the rest of the series open for a repetitive game of cat and mouse interspersed with side plots that seem to exist only because the main cast just had to consist of more than three people.

And also…

Hannibal, Bates Motel, Orphan Black, Faking It, Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Music of the year

This is the part where you stop reading

2015 was another stunning year for music, with landmark releases in different genres and the continued breakthrough of good, artsy pop music into the mainstream charts. With its dense jazz arrangements, funk influences and politically-charged lyrics, Kendrick Lamar’s seminal To Pimp a Butterfly managed to be a hit even with my parents. On the other side of the Atlantic, Jamie Smith of The xx produced In Colour, a wonderful debut album filled with melancholic dance songs and murky celebrations of the London nightlife. The Australian Tame Impala combined seventies psychedelic rock and eighties synthpop on their funky, yet introspective third album Currents, while Michigan’s finest Sufjan Stevens awoke from his five-year hibernation with the chilling Carrie & Lowell, a tangibly fragile, heart-rending elegy to a mother he barely even knew.

Grimes

On the entirely opposite end of the volume spectrum, Deafheaven miraculously managed to make a worthy successor to their breakthrough album Sunbather: New Bermuda is another monolith of brutal splendor and cosmic poignancy, somehow both more gorgeous and more unforgiving than they have ever sounded before. Yet the finest album of the year has to be Grimes’ madly brilliant Art Angels. Not so much an evolution as a revolution compared to her earlier skeletal compositions, Art Angels is an honest-to-goodness pop record, filled from start to end with brilliant melodies from a plethora of different genres, all neatly wrapped up in Grimes’ signature dreamy production and delivered with reckless abandon. There’s an orchestral intro, a nu-metal track with a Taiwanese rapper, a Dolly Parton-inspired torch song dissing Pitchfork Media and an absolutely ridiculous show tune about Al Pacino’s character in The Godfather II, “except he’s a vampire who can switch gender and travel through space”, and absolutely none of it is in any way dishonest. Art Angels sounds like Grimes unconditionally embracing every aspect of her own being, and it is an honour, nay, a privilege to get to experience it along with her.

And also…

So yeah, that was 2015. As a year, it sucked quite a whole lot. Yet as another 365 days to do the things I love, it wasn’t half bad. Let’s not forget the good stuff — the friends we made, the opportunities we seized, or even just that one time when they played that song you like on the radio, or when you got out of bed and finally had that inspiration you needed to create something — and take it with us as we set foot into 2016. To all the fear-mongering fools and hate-stirring cowards I wish a little bit of love and a lot of common sense, and to everyone the heart and the humanity to make next year one worth living in for everyone. Happy New Year, and may it be better than the last.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens‘ baddie Kylo Ren is not the mysterious overlord the trailers hyped him up to be. Au contraire. Underneath that scary mask he’s just a dude. A scrawny white dude with a bad temper and a serious case of the daddy complexes. Everything about him, from his true appearance, to the way his identity is revealed and his astonishing final confrontation with Finn and Rey, is an enormous, yet brilliant anticlimax. He’s a loser. A try-hard. A whiny little kid who thinks he can play with the big boys, pretend to be a wise and mysterious lord of the Sith while he really seems to know jack about the intricacies of the Force, let alone about properly holding a lightsaber. Yet that is what makes him so special. He is the terrifying, a-long-time-ago-in-a-galaxy-far-far-away analogue to teenagers here and now channeling their personal frustrations into pompous extremism, fascist sympathies and pseudo-intellectual self-righteousness. Soundsfamiliar? Anyone? He is the face of evil in 2015. Or at least, he thinks he is. Yet does that mean we shouldn’t take him — or any of the other entitled babies we can compare him to — seriously? Hell no. Kylo Ren may be a wangsty brat, but he’s still very much a threat, because he would do everything, no matter how outrageous, unexpected, cowardly, dishonest or downright cretinous, to prove just how evil he is. And that arguably makes him more dangerous than Darth Vader ever would have been.

Too much ink has already been spilled on two anime that have premiered recently, and how similar they are: The Asterisk War and Chivalry of a Failed Knight. That wouldn’t be such a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that what these two shows have in common is symptomatic of everything wrong with cheap, forgettable light novels in this day and age. The male protagonist attends a magic high school. He starts out low on pecking order, meets a girl who is amongst the school’s elite, embarrasses her, causing her to challenge him to a fight, yadda yadda yadda. In the end, however, it always comes down to the fact that, despite his low rank in whatever arbitrary power measurement system the series has come up with, the male protagonist curb-stomps anyone who crosses his path — especially that elite female protagonist.

This ‘deemed the worst but actually the best’ trope is all over the place in light novels, and I can’t help but mull over just how shamelessly anti-feminist it is. If the rampant objectification and the fact that most female characters in light novels exist solely to have a crush on the protagonist didn’t already convince you of the fact that the medium has a gender problem, hear me out for a bit. The basic logic behind this trope is the Randian idea that the male protagonist is the most talented and strongest –because he is without exception a juvenile power fantasy — yet is denied the credit he deserves for his talents because his powers are different from the norm. The examples are myriad: There’s Touma from A Certain Magical Index, who is a Level 0 because his power is neither magic nor science; there’s Kirito from Sword Art Online, who is unrightfully shunned by other characters for being a ‘beater’; and of course the shining patron saint of this trope: Tatsuya Shiba, the titular Irregular at Magic High School, who is unable to use conventional magic, but a super-genius at everything else. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the main characters of The Asterisk War and Chivalry of a Filed Knight fit this description to a T.

On the other hand, the female protagonist will often be some kind of prodigy or genius, considered the very best at whatever the norm is in the series’ universe. The link with the standard anti-feminist rhetoric that men are denied their ‘proper’ credit because of ‘political correctness’ is easily made. And what pretty much always happens in light novels? The male protagonist defeats the female protagonist, despite being ‘worse’ than her, which always leads to her falling for him, or even being somehow forced into being his slave, as is the case in Chivalry of a Failed Knight. In other words: The truly talented man reigns victorious over the woman who only profited off of institutionalized positive discrimination. I assume most of the hacks who write this dross have never read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, nor visited a men’s rights subreddit, but the inherent message these abominations have in common is just too prevalent in light novels to be a mere coincidence.

I don’t need to tell you that 2014 was kind of a crappy year. A year filled with political upheaval, heartbreaking deaths and communities succumbing to fear and selfishness. 2014 was the year of people being whipped for dancing, of civilian planes being shot down by warmongers, of innocent people being decapitated on screen, of massacres, intolerance, religious extremism and neoconservative discourse spreading around the world like a blight. 2014 was the year in which some brave rebels turned out to be even worse than the oppressive dictator they stood up against, in which the police forgot to serve and protect anyone other than themselves and protestors used modern means to advocate dated values. In other words, unless you’re an aspiring fascist dictator or a terrorist, chances are the news this year turned your insides inside out on a regular basis. And then I haven’t even mentioned the nonsense that’s been going on in my own country. Luckily, being the relentless optimist I am, I’m glad to conclude that, at the very least, the year produced some great content that will stick with me for a long time. Here’s the stuff I’ll remember from a year many people would rather forget.

Gaming

Even without an invasive reactionary smear campaign permanently burying the idea of video gaming as a proud part of our culture in an early grave, 2014 still proved to be a depressingly awful year for video gaming. It was the year in which some of the most anticipated and acclaimed productions were rereleases of games made a year ago, in which working properly stopped being a prerequisite for blockbuster video games, in which critics got mocked for addressing perfectly valid complaints and industry fat cats once again got away spot-free with rethreading the same tried and true paths of repetitive mechanics and puerile machismo. If anything, the only step the industry as a whole set in any kind of direction this year is yet another step closer to video games being little more than elaborate schemes to con entitled frat boys out of their money — though many of the venerated ‘personalities’ who generally point out that kind of stuff soon turned out to be just as bad, if not worse. 2014 was the year in which my faith in video games as a legit form of entertainment its consumers can be proud of was mercilessly crushed from both sides, and for that reason there is no game of the year. There is no game I want to blemish with the responsibility of representing this annus horribilis.

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth – A rare highlight in a year of atrocities.

Gaming has entered a new, worse era, where not a word can be said without the deluded scrutiny of its deranged gatekeepers. Whether you call it a ‘movement’, a ‘controversy’, or in my opinion most accurately ‘a clusterfuck’, ‘Gamergate’ has infested the video gaming discourse to the point where I cannot even remember what gaming culture looked like without the sophistic fallacies of conservative, misogynistic halfwits twisting any kind of intellectual discussion on the matter into an assault on their poor, vulnerable egos. If you’re not familiar with the matter, consider yourself lucky that you, like me, have the privilege of ignoring it and count your blessings once again that you ended up born a straight, white, cisgender male. Because let’s be honest here: Gamergate has been around for way longer than that godforsaken day when the douchebag from Firefly thought he was being clever by conjuring up a historically misguided name for the systematic harassment and abuse of women in gaming.

Gamergate will not die, not only because its adherents have nothing better to do than chasing people from their homes and defending neo-nazis and child abusers for the sake of ‘ethics in gaming journalism’. The Gamergate discourse will remain because most game developers want little more than its proponents to be their audience. For developers, being conservative, patriarchal and entirely dependent on cheap shock is easy. Emancipation, awareness and respect, however, are not, and I’m growing ever more sure that I have no reason to stay part of a culture that seems to do everything in its power to curb any kind of progress. Without progress, there cannot be a game of the year. Bravely Default, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8 and Persona Q are great games, but they can’t vouch for how video games evolved in the year 2014. Gaming isn’t dead, it’s slipping into a coma, and that might actually be worse.

Wipe The Dew From Your Eyes

It’s rather ironic, then, that the game I enjoyed the most this year was made by the developer that embodies all the problems I just addressed so perfectly. In the deepest corners of Ubisoft’s hypothetical office building, far away from the thousands of people pressured into phoning in their contributions to Watch_Dogs, Assassin’s Creed Unity or The Crew, a small team worked on Child of Light, a beautiful homage to the whimsey of childhood and the magic of the role playing games of yore. No ‘dark’ and ‘mature’ political violence, ham-fisted moral choices or cheesy romantic side-quests in Child of Light, but the heartwarming tale of an innocent girl tasked with carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders in her quest to save her father from a broken heart. Aided by a quirky band of compatriots, ranging from a jester who can’t rhyme to a mysterious demon with a heart of gold, Aurora travels through the gorgeous, mysterious world of Lemuria in order to restore its sun, moon and stars. It’s a simplistic story often artificially inflated with pomp and circumstance — due in part to the game’s somewhat ill-adviced insistence on telling its story entirely in rhyme without any kind of regard for other, more important aspects of poetry — but eventually one that tugs at the heartstrings without the manipulative bombast of most mainstream video games.

Child Of Light – One of the many beautiful sights you’ll witness during Aurora’s journey.

The true charm of Child of Light resides in its gorgeous world, a luscious watercolour landscape of windswept plains and azure oceans filled with nooks and crannies for nosey players to explore. Filled with bite-sized puzzles and hazardous traps, the dungeons in Child of Light are short, but infinitely more rewarding than the endless corridors or procedurally generated labyrinths of the games from whence it draws inspiration. The battle system is equally enjoyable in its simplicity, combining a simple, turn-based game of guess-the-monster’s-elemental-weakness with an ingenious timeline mechanic. It’s quite reminiscent of Final Fantasy X, where manipulating the displayed order of turns with certain attacks and abilities is key. While the game is far from hard, befitting its broad target demographic and easy to understand gameplay, tactical masterminds will get a hoot out of timing their attacks well to obliterate enemies before they even have a chance to attack. Last but not least, the gorgeous soundtrack by French-Canadian singer-songwriter Coeur de Pirate beautifully supplements the game’s mysterious, melancholic vibe with its touching melodies.

Child of Light – The battle system is simplistic, but perfect for a game that never drags or forces you to grind.

Child of Light consistently and continuously colours inside the lines, but it sets a nice precedent I’d love to see more developers follow up on: smaller, humbler games with the polish of a blockbuster, but the heart of an indie game. Blending the best of two worlds is the only way I can see both scenes escape from their respective ruts, whether it’s big name developers favouring cinematic flair over gameplay or the indie sphere continuing to relish in nostalgia to side-scrolling platformers and rogue-likes. Child of Light is getting my praise maybe not necessarily because of what it is, but because of what it represents: beautiful, artistic games for everyone. It’s my favourite game of 2014. But it can’t be the game of the year. Gaming simply doesn’t deserve a game of the year this year.

Television

While I’m a big fan of the serial storytelling format in theory, in truth, I’m generally not a big TV watcher. As someone who’s already intimidated by having to watch the same film for two hours, I generally have more than enough on my plate already to care about big event television series. I got spoiled on Breaking Bad before I even knew what it was, and the general misanthropy and puerile abundance of sex and violence in most connoisseur series nowadays turns me off immensely. I was on the fence about Game of Thrones from the very beginning, but this year, the show finally made good on its promise to have all its sympathetic characters either eliminated or turned reprehensible — following up an tactless rape scene with more senseless brutality and relentless darkness to the point where I simply don’t care anymore which asshole will get to rule over all the other assholes. It’s a good thing that at the very least, all of these assholes are played with such verve.

Transgressive Lesbian Geek Spiral

Aside from Doctor Who, which had a surprisingly fun run this year — thanks in part to Peter Capaldi’s intense performance and some interesting ideas — the only relatively major television drama I am still on board with is Canada’s finest: Orphan Black, a clever and incredibly tense piece of conspiracy television that wrapped up its second season earlier this year. Orphan Black is about streetwise con artist Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany), who to her shock witnesses the suicide of a woman who looks exactly like her. Being the opportunists they are, Sarah and her flamboyant adoptive brother Felix (Jordan Gavaris) conceive of a plan for Sarah to impersonate her dead doppelgänger, a police detective named Beth. While the ploy initially sounds like the best thing that could’ve happened to Sarah, things quickly go haywire when she is approached by another lookalike, Katja, who manages to beg for Sarah’s help before being assassinated on the spot. Without spoiling too much, Sarah and her ‘sisters’ — all wonderfully portrayed by the talented Maslany — quickly finds themselves embroiled in a far-reaching conspiracy involving various shady factions from all over the nation.

Orphan Black – Seeing double.

Nevertheless, the sprawling web of intrigue Orphan Black spins remains surprisingly focussed, with many a twist organically pushing the plot forward to thrilling new heights. In the end, the show’s musings on the ethical ramifications of the shady experiments Sarah tries to get to the bottom of play second fiddle to the sisters’ troubled personal lives, casting an intriguing and respectful light on their respective shortcomings. Its characters are flawed, but miraculously never not enjoyable to watch — presenting moral ambiguity despite straying far away from the cynicism and bleakness of its contemporaries, thanks in part to its hilarious reliance on mood whiplash and black comedy. Orphan Black is equal parts geeky and genuine – mixing speculative fiction with thrilling action, dorky humour, fascinating effects, strong performances and progressive takes on family, identity and sexuality. Season 2 ended on a massive twist, so I’m looking forward to see if the show can keep up its quality when season 3 hits next spring.

If You Love Something, Set It Free

Speaking of progressive takes on sexuality, Faking It is a show I stumbled upon somewhat haphazardly, because that is honestly the only way I can ever see someone watching MTV in the year 2014. A high school comedy initially very similar to the ones the channel has been churning out for years now, Faking It is about Karma (Katie Stevens) and Amy (Rita Volk), two best friends who are accidentally and wrongly outed as a couple by their comically liberal school’s most popular guy, Shane (Michael J. Willett). Because Karma is an American high school girl and therefore addicted to that invaluable commodity named popularity, she coaxes the meeker Amy into faking along, and the ‘couple’ soon become local celebrities — which Karma uses to her advantage to seduce her crush Liam (Gregg Sulkin). It’s a premise that sounds trite at best and offensive at worst, turning sexuality into a cheap gimmick for an otherwise by-the-numbers teen comedy. Yet around the third episode, something clicks. It’s somewhat hard to explain why the show gets so much better than it sounds without spoiling some of the general (if not predictable) turns the story takes, so feel free to skip this bit in the unlikely case I’ve already convinced you. As you might have guessed, it’s when Amy figures out that she is, in fact, genuinely attracted to Karma, that Faking It becomes one of the most heartwarming and hilarious shows I’ve seen on TV in a whole year.

Faking It – The King, The Queen and Princess Sarcasm.

Fueled by endearing performances and strong jokes, Faking It drops the ‘fake lesbians’ premise almost entirely upon starting its second season, shifting attention to Amy coping with the fact that Karma won’t ever love her the way she loves Karma, who on her turn has to deal with dating the ‘man of her dreams’ while her best friend is heartbroken and the entire school wants her proverbially dead for making a mockery of the entire LGBT community — a strong example of how listening to criticism can make your show infinitely better. While the status quo usually rules the comedy scene, Faking It‘s cast goes through a hefty dose of character development, as even the initially most unsympathetic characters — namely Liam, the token straight guy who gets in the way of the fans’ one true paring, and Amy’s bigoted stepsister Lauren (Bailey De Young) — turn out to be a lot more than they initially seem. While the show is no stranger to cheesy melodrama — the big ‘shocker’ at the end of season one is so silly, it’s almost parody — it tends to keep its soap opera leanings under the covers in favour of heartfelt character moments and consistently snarky dialogue. As many a show has taught us before, you can only drag out a love dodecahedron for so long, so I hope Faking It will know when it’s time to call it quits. It helps that, for once though, the showrunners and the fans are entirely on the same page when it comes to who should end up with whom.

The Possibilities of a New Reality

Speaking of which, I can hardly mention shippers getting their way without addressing The Legend of Korra‘s amazing resolution, bravely kicking convention to the curb in a way that most author’s saving throws can only dream of being. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid the near Sixth Sense-levels of infamy the ending has already achieved, just know that I thought it was incredibly well-anticipated and perfectly in line with Korra’s development throughout the show’s four seasons, making a bold statement and pleasing loyal fans without letting the inmates take over the asylum. It is the only example I know to date of the shipping fandom making any sort of positive contribution to a show’s legacy, but picking apart what the show did wrong and right with its ending is food for a whole different blog altogether. The spectacular renaissance The Legend of Korra went through in 2014 is about so much more than its ending.

The Legend of Korra – Yes, I thought the ‘Dark Avatar’ was really gross, too.

When I started watching season 3 earlier this year, the show was a corpse to me, the smouldering remains of a thoroughly botched attempt to make lightning strike twice, initially bogged down by unsatisfying twists on the Avatar universe’s established rules and a painfully trite love triangle subplot, and in its second season viciously immolated by childish humour, awful characters, ridiculous twists (the “Dark Avatar” still haunts my nightmares) and retcons up the wazoo. Worst of all, the very first thing The Legend of Korra did this year was giving random characters airbending powers out of nowhere, a feat well established to be impossible up until then. It seemed like yet another entry in the show’s lengthy list of awful decisions, but after a few episodes it became clear why this completely unjustifiable twist may have been justified after all. The Legend of Korra had nothing left to lose. Season 2 had left the franchise’s canon in tatters and its hare-brained, bratty main character despised by the lion’s part on the fandom. By violating its own canon one final time, reintroducing the airbenders, whose absence had long been one of the universe’s fundaments, The Legend of Korra tore itself down completely — only so it could build itself up again, stronger, smarter, and more topical than ever before.

By giving a bunch of random citizens of its 1920’s-inspired universe the powers of a tribe of conservative monks, therefore forcing them to adopt their cluture, The Legend of Korra provided some interesting perspectives on the values of tradition in the modern world, while the season’s villain Zaheer — an eloquent anarchist played by the one and only Henry Rollins — represented the twisted other edge of the mirror. Korra and her friends sorted out their issues like grown-ups and soon found themselves interacting in ways few other animated series can match, trading in their ham-fisted angst from the previous two seasons for complex, but well-presented musings on duty, talent, envy, family and the overarching conflict between order and chaos, mirroring the larger conflict playing out between Zaheer and the newly-reformed Air Nomads. Always tense and exciting, season 3 of The Legend Of Korra explored political and spiritual themes far more interesting than the ones presented in seasons 1 and 2 respectively — despite said seasons being written specifically with these topics in mind — and took the franchise deeper and deeper down a darker path, eventually leading to the show getting thrown off Nickelodeon entirely.

The Legend of Korra – You know, for kids!

It’s in its new incarnation as a webstream that The Legend of Korra fully blossomed, however. As the anti-authoritarian Zaheer plummets half the world into anarchy and makes Korra question whether the universe still needs the Avatar, the show finally hits the subversive stride it aimed for from the very beginning — being not merely The Last Airbender set in more modern times, but a fresh new spin on the formula, with aside from the aesthetics of the 1920’s and 30’s, also their challenges and political upheavals. After exploring the repercussions of anarchy in season 3, leaving Korra victorious, but incapacitated, broken and alone, season 4 skips the action to three years later. It trades in the somewhat philosophical themes of Book 3 for a more political turn, as the lawless state Zaheer’s actions has left the Earth Kingdom in sees the rise of a wholly different breed of antagonist: the ruthless, vaguely fascist ‘Great Uniter’ Kuvira (Zelda Williams). While Kuvira gets all the attention a villain of her caliber deserves, The Legend of Korra once again wisely opts to let its protagonist centre stage, leaving no stone unturned in its attempts to respectfully portray Korra’s PTSD and subsequent recovery. It’s a rousing rise and fall arc in reverse, learning from the mistakes made by similar attempts in seasons 1 and 2 to create a breathtaking narrative exploring themes rarely ever seen in genre television, let alone genre television for kids. While the show remains far from flawless — due in part to the occasional infantile joke and the show’s insistence on acknowledging the idiotic retcons from season 2 — and the martial arts still miss the charm the original The Last Airbender had, the miraculous revival The Legend Of Korra went through this year is nothing short of amazing, and one of the definitive highlights of the year. Due to its low ratings and constant pushing the boundaries of what the channel will allow, I doubt Nickelodeon will give the Avatar franchise another shot. It’ll be a pity to see it go, but on the other hand, I’m glad to have seen it go out on such a high note.

Film

Call it the creeping bitterness of adulthood or the still-lasting aftereffects of watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in cinema, but I’m growing ever more incapable of enjoying movies. My mind’s been permanently out of a mood to sit in front of a screen for two hours for most of the year, and unless it’s a film I’ve been hyped for for ages, chances are likely I’ll stop caring halfway through and will opt to go read a book while listening to music and refreshing my Facebook feed every five minutes instead, even though nothing ever happens on it. Even when I’m watching a film I truly, genuinely enjoy, I often find myself just waiting for it to be over so I can go do anything else, even if when watching a movie is the only time I ever catch a desire to do anything. It’s probably because of this that I found 2014 to be a rather run-off-the-mill year for film, featuring some highly entertaining blockbusters, but not much outside of the realm of superheroes and space flight that really spoke to me.

This Barbaric Slaughterhouse Once Known as Humanity

A major reason for this is the fact that I haven’t had a chance to even watch most of the year’s most prolific releases yet (Boyhood, Under The Skin, Gone Girl), but aside from that, my favourite film artistique release of the year for now has to be Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, a madcap historical adventure in which every shot looks like a meticulously detailed painting. Anderson’s signature camerawork, only shooting characters or buildings from the front or from the side, gives the impression of his world being one big dollhouse, as The Grand Budapest Hotel hyperactively tumbles from one farce into another.

The nervous, eastern-European inspired soundtrack fits the Fawlty Towers-esque vibe of Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his buddy Zero (Tony Revolori) barreling halfway across a pastel-coloured 1930’s wonderland solving a series of highly convoluted crimes and getting themselves into trouble with all sorts of fascists, aristocrats and Willem Dafoe. It’s a ridiculous cocktail of absurdity, black comedy, beautiful imagery and a slew of memorable cameos (Tilda Swinton! Bill Murray! Jeff Goldblum!) in grand Wes Anderson tradition, elevated to higher levels of artsy-fartsy quirkiness thanks to some fantastically over-the-top performances. You could accuse Wes Anderson of making the same movie over and over again, but no one makes movies like Wes Anderson makes them, and if there’s anything the world needs in these times of crisis, it’s movies like Wes Anderson makes them.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Somewhere in between blockbuster and art flick is Interstellar, a movie I have somewhat mixed feelings about. Christopher Nolan’s slick, bombastic style is still a perfect match for a story of Interstellar‘s scope. The retro-inspired art design and murky cinematography — a welcome change from the almost creepily polished look of Inception and The Dark Knight Rises — is breathtaking. Matthew McConaughey and newcomer Mackenzie Foy turn in great performances, but in the end I can’t help but feel that Interstellar feels more like a presentation on quantum physics than like an actual narrative. The ending, which I won’t spoil, is esoteric, oddly presented, predictable even, and feels like it belongs more in a psychedelic character piece than in a hard sci-fi journey into an actually probable future. Yet instead of focusing on the human ramifications of time dilation and space colonialism, Interstellar is almost merciless in its technobabble, making people who opted out of physics throughout their school career feel somewhat locked out of the loop.

It’s astronaut Cooper finding out that his little girl has become a grown woman in what to him were just a few minutes that I care about, or the question whether it’s worth surviving for mankind if that means living in a spaceship on a desolate wasteland, not the fact whether or not all of this is even scientifically plausible. I’m apparently the only person in the universe who thinks this, but I’d say Interstellar shines the brightest, oddly enough, when it’s set on Earth, painting a grizzly picture of an American South forced back to its agrarian roots by worldwide natural disaster. It’s the human element, focusing on Cooper and his family’s struggle for survival in the dust-clad badlands, that constitutes Interstellar‘s strongest bits — which for the usually so clinical Nolan is a pleasant surprise. As is the case here, the man’s incessant ambition doesn’t always pay off, but it always results in memorable, interesting movies. Interstellar is no exception. Whatever “the thinking man’s Michael Bay” tries out next, I’ll be on the front row. Unless it’s another superhero movie.

Enjoy Popular Music

A lot less muddled by any sort of academic pretense was The Lego Movie, a joyous homage to creativity chock full with great gags, artistic flourishes and references to the toy line’s long history of licensed properties. Yet for a film based on one of the biggest brands around, it’s ironically rather staunch in its anti-corporate message. Surprisingly, The Lego Movie uses its standard stick-it-to-the-oppressive-man plot to propose a neat compromise in the argument Lego fans have been waging for decades: Should you stick to the instructions or let your imagination run wild? Touching messages aside, it’s the animation in particular that sets The Lego Movie apart. Though apparently all rendered in CGI, The Lego Movie looks and feels like stop-motion, from the intentionally jittery frame rate and wooden movements of the traditionally rather stiff mini-figures to everything on screen, up to the explosions, being built out of tiny plastic bricks. It’s a unique visual charm that I will only tolerate getting shafted for the Academy’s most blatantly ignored award if Ghibli’s The Tale of Princess Kaguya somehow manages to secure a nomination.

Probably the most impressive thing about The Lego Movie, aside from its animation, is how baffling of dream come true is. A movie starring Batman, C-3PO, Shaquille O’Neill, Abraham Lincoln and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sounds like something straight out of a twelve-year old boy’s diary, but it somehow managed to end up in theatres nonetheless. It’s a small miracle The Lego Movie managed to bring what makes Lego so unique to the big screen with genuine glee. Like many movies of its ilk, it’s a bit too loud and jazz-hands-sing-sang-voice “wacky” for its own good, both with its heart in the right place, it shows that quality and commercial motives shouldn’t always be mutually exclusive. Alongside Marvel’s fantastic double whammy of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lego Movie reasserted my faith in big-budget cinema fun, so here’s hoping the inevitable sequel(s) will manage to make lighting strike twice.

Music

Music is arguably my biggest passion, but also the one that, sadly enough, people tend to care about the least. This year saw the release of a dozens of albums and songs I’d love to write whole paragraphs about, but for the sake of my sanity and yours, I’ll try to narrow it down. The general consensus on the musical year of 2014 seems to be that of many highlights, but little surprises. Bands expected to deliver managed to do so, but no one jumped out to deliver a piece of work opening up new musical horizons and ushering in a new generation. It was a year of many eight out of tens, but little to no nine and tens, so to say, so picking a single standout album or song of the year is a challenge to say the least. I’ve never been a believer in hierarchy anyways, so let me leave the ranking to actual music writers and just ramble a bit. I’m good at rambling.

Come Here And Be Gorgeous For Me

If you’d told me at the beginning of the year that one of my favourite albums of the year would be a record I can’t help but to describe as “neo dad rock”, I’d have laughed at you, but Lost In The Dream by The War On Drugs is exactly that. It’s the kind of record that makes you realize all that classic guitar rock played by long-haired white dudes in hilariously unfashionable linen shirts that your dad listens to is actually pretty cool when your dad doesn’t listen to it. If atmospheric guitar plucking, 80’s synthesizers, epic rock-‘n-roll jams and dudes named “Adam Granduciel” yelling “woo!” just a few times to many to still sound spontaneous are your thing, make sure to check out standout rock-outs like “Red Eyes” or “An Ocean Between The Waves”. Not entirely unrelated to The War On Drugs’ surprising rise to fame was the return of Beck to the songwriting scene. The guy you might know from “Loser” released another 60’s and 70’s-inspired acoustic album this year, Morning Phase, filled with beautiful, emotional songs produced with the same wholesome-sounding flourish and wonderful orchestral arrangements as his 2002 masterpiece Sea Change. It’s a wonderful argument to prove that country and folk aren’t just for hillbillies and tree-huggers, with lead single “Blue Moon” as the song to remember.

Fancy your country a bit less soppy? Iceage, a ridiculously unhinged punk band from Denmark released Plowing Into The Field Of Love this year, a fascinating, deranged album mixing the band’s established noisy punk sound with drunken banjos and spaghetti western trumpet solos. Iceage still sound like they’re intentionally playing out of synch and vocalist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt sings like a stark raving lunatic drunk off his trousers on cheap beer, but their eclectic songwriting is more cathartic than ever. From the fun-tastic swagger of “The Lord’s Favourite” to the lone-ranger eerieness of “Forever”, Plowing Into The Field of Love injects the dusty wild west with some Scandinavian cool.

It’s Hard To Be a Lover When The TV’s On

Moving away from the cold north and into the rainy west of Europe, another musical highlight of the year was the release of Everyday Robots, the debut solo album by Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame. Despite having been active in the music business for over 25 years, it’s the first proper solo album Albarn has released in his own name — though in many ways, it sounds a lot like a new Gorillaz album. The subtle electronics, melancholic deadpan vocals and clever use of guest appearances by Bat for Lashes and Brian Eno invoke the spirit of Albarn’s cartoony side project, yet the lyrics tear down the animated guise the singer has hidden himself behind for a good chunk of the last decade, revealing a battle-hardened, matured man speaking honestly about his mistakes from the past and humanity’s prospects for the future. While the poppy gospel singalong “Mr. Tembo” was the most heavily pushed track off the record, it’s the more personal, experimental songs like “The Selfish Giant” or “You and Me” that truly define Everyday Robots. It’s the rare relevant, dignified release by an industry veteran that only comes around once every few years, and an album to be cherished by new and old fans alike.

From old hands to greenhorns: the relentlessly hyped Alt-J released their second album This Is All Yours this year, once again dividing critics. One side praised the Oxford trio for blending together rock, pop, folk and electronica into an experimental, complicated cocktail, the other slamming them as overhyped, pretentious and blessed with the poetic talent of a Mills & Boon novel. I personally can’t get enough of Alt-J’s eclectic songwriting, whether its Joe Newman nose-yodeling over a sampled Miley Cyrus (!) in “Hunger of The Pine” or the tribal thumps of “Every Other Freckle”, a love song cursed with what have to be some of the most awkward lyrics to be ever mumbled into a microphone. Nevertheless, it’s the uncompromising geekiness that constitutes part of Alt-J’s charm, as without it, the band’s sonic shenanigans just wouldn’t sound as genuine. In spite of all their ambitions, Alt-J never lose track of The Song™, having delivered another sleight of catchy, but creative tracks on their path to posh art school student superstardom. Except for “Garden of England”. Fuck those flutes.

Other Cool Things 2014 Gave Us

I can keep talking about music and categorizing things until the cows come home — or you tell me to do some blogging outside of the month of December — but this post is frankly getting so obscenely long the new year might have actually started already when you’re reading this. Here’s some more stuff I’ll remember this year by that doesn’t really fit into any of the above categories:

If there was a word to describe the podcast equivalent of a ‘page turner’, Serial would definitely qualify as one. While it might have eventually turned out to be more of an incredibly elaborate piece of investigative non-fiction than the thrilling murder mystery many expected it to be, Serial remains an incredibly intriguing listen, exploring a web of intrigue against the backdrop of Baltimore in the late 1990’s. Though controversial for its inconclusive ending and rather voyeuristic nature, the podcast is still more than worth your time, if only because of host Sarah Koenig’s dedication and outstanding narrative skill.

Ms. Marvel – I want that jacket so much.

Ms. Marvel, by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

2014 was a great year for Marvel, taking the box office my storm not once, but twice, and introducing a updated, more diverse slew of heroes to critical acclaim. Frontrunner of this new generation — however long it may actually last — is G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona’s Ms. Marvel, a charming, quirky gem that could easily attract a brand new audience of comic book readers. Kamala Khan is more than just a woman and a Muslim, she’s the Peter Parker for the 21st century, an witty, flawed and intensely relatable super-heroine who becomes a vigilante out of admiration for the likes of Iron Man and Captain America. Ms. Marvel combines Kamala’s adventures with a nuanced exploration of the conflicts she faces trying to combine her new life as a shapeshifting superhero with the traditions of her strict family and her faith. Best of all, Ms. Marvel is one of those rare comics anyone can dive into without any prior knowledge of the Marvel Universe, so what are you waiting for?

Kamen Rider Gaim

The best superhero fiction this year didn’t feature gun-toting raccoons, giant teleporting bulldogs or villains speaking in #hashtags, but breakdancing fruit samurai playing Pokémon to settle their beef. It’s also about envy, betrayal, heroism, sacrifice, redemption and doing the right thing in the face of cynicism. What else can still be said on Kamen Rider Gaim? Check out my full impressions over on The Glorio Blog.

Gotham Academy – My second favourite expression of surprise, after “What the God?”

Gotham Academy by Brenden Fletcher, Becky Cloonan and Karl Kerschl

With another widely beloved book joining Marvel’s ranks in Ms. Marvel, DC seem to have finally realized that their current policies weren’t exactly winning them any new fans. Taking a page out of the House of Ideas’ book, DC revitalized their stagnating New 52 line by, amongst others, rebooting Batgirl into an adorable, lighthearted pseudo-manga and launching Gotham Academy, a Scooby-Doo-esque romp chronicling the misadventures of the students attending Batman’s alma mater. Part high school dramedy, part occult mystery, Gotham Academy invokes the gothic atmosphere of the best Batman tales. It effortlessly weaves the Batman mythos into its adventures, which alongside the loveable characters and strong artwork makes Gotham Academy more than recommendable to anyone with even a marginal interest in the Caped Crusader.

Il Nero e l’Argento (The Black and the Silver), by Paolo Giordano

I’ve fallen out of the habit of reading proper literature a bit this year — mostly due to spending most of it wrestling through Brandon Sanderson’s sprawling Mistborn trilogy — but whenever a new Paolo Giordano novel comes out, it tends to take priority over everything else going on in my undoubtedly very interesting life. Like no other this Italian particle-physicist-turned-author is able to portray the tragicomedy of human existence, which is no different in his latest, semi-autobiographical novel Il Nero e l’Argento. With his trademark warm, empathic style, Giordano describes the impact the deterioration and death of his former housekeeper had on his family, sketching the melancholy and suffering of fundamentally lonely people in ways few other writers can match. Sadly enough, Il Nero e l’Argento has yet to be translated into English, so in the meantime, you might want to check out his earlier works, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, and The Human Body.

This magazine cover of Billy Corgan with his cats

The world is a vampire.

Don’t let that stop you in trying to make the best of next year, however. All of 2014’s problems won’t just magically disappear, but hopefully, a new number at the end of the date can inspire us to try harder, stand stronger and do better with reinvigorated courage, or some other cheesy nonsense like that. Have a great day, night, and year, and I will see you… on the Internet.

]]>https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/2014-elegy-for-a-disaster/feed/0News-EverythingAwfulSomeoneDoSomething(DavidAja)[6]aquagazeNews-EverythingAwfulSomeoneDoSomething(DavidAja)[6]Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - A rare highlight in a year of atrocities.Bravely Default - Despite it's almost comically padded-out endgame, still a wonderful throwback to Japanese RPG's of the 90's.Child Of Light - One of the many beautiful sights you'll witness during Aurora's journey.Child of Light - The battle system is simplistic, but perfect for a game that never drags or forces you to grind.Orphan Black - Seeing doubleFaking It - The King, The Queen and Princess Sarcasm.The Legend of Korra - Yes, I thought the 'Dark Avatar' was really gross, too.The Legend of Korra - You know, for kids!Ms. Gotham Academy - My second favourite expression of surprise, after "What the God?"The world is a vampire.Some Very Quick Thoughts On Summer 2013 Animehttps://retroversy.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/some-very-quick-thoughts-on-summer-2013-anime/
https://retroversy.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/some-very-quick-thoughts-on-summer-2013-anime/#commentsTue, 21 May 2013 15:09:26 +0000http://retroversy.wordpress.com/?p=241]]>

One more month, give and take a few days, and we will be free from classes and exams for what seems like a glorious eternity once more! No better time to get out of the country, go to the beach or the mountains, ride your bike, read a book, work on your figure or meet up with some old friends. Don’t worry, I’m just kidding. Of course we are all going to stay locked up inside and watch shady Japanese cartoons! What better way to get you all hyped up for those is there than by complaining about them based on a summary and some promo art? I thought as much. Here’s my quick thoughts on the Summer 2013 anime season, based on this here chart. Thank you, Neregate!

Will this season mark the not-so-glorious return of Gonzo to mainstream anime? With none other than Shigeyasu Yamauchi, the controversial director of Casshern Sins, Yumekui Merry and episode 5 of From The New World, they might just stand a chance… that is, if they had decided to go with any other manga to adapt than A Town Where You Live (Kimi no Iru Machi). Based on a generic love triangle manga that has been going on for ages now, I am exceptionally surprised it took someone so bloody long to adapt this. Best known for its rage-inducing romantic drama, constant conflicts, misunderstandings, fanservice and refusal to just bloody end already, Kimi no Iru Machi is particularly liked by the French for some insane reason. The self-obsessed drama of shoujo meets the glacial pacing of shounen? Sounds like my kryptonite. Besides, I really could not care any less about bland Japanese school boys and their love lives anymore.

Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyo

Fear not, however, because they also still have another show in the pipeline: Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyo, a show about a guy who is turned into a dog and ends up with a mysterious girl who loves abusing him with a pair of scissors. Get it? Japan loves to associate dogs with abuse, a tradition which probably stems from parents abusing their children by telling them melodramatic stories about dogs, like Hachiko or The Dog of Flanders. I really don’t need another light novel adaptation about abuse, but at the very least, the scriptwriter previously worked on some episodes of Durarara!! and Steins;Gate. Still, does that really tell us anything?

Speaking of abusive undertones, Servant x Service is this season’s contender for “least appropriately titled anime of the season”. Boy, we sure are mature, aren’t we? Anyways, Servant x Service — *snrk* — is based on a 4-panel “comedy” manga by the author of Wagnaria!!. Admittedly, that one was pretty fun, and Servant x Service shows some promise with its setting and cast full of actual adults. Sadly enough, the director seems like a complete hack and the guy in charge of writing is not even known yet. In the same category, there are Kin-iro Mosaic, a show that will probably be all about how Japan thinks being foreign means having blonde hair, blue eyes and three shots of Red Bull every day, and Love Live, a show the summary of which literally adresses its characters by their archetypes. There is not trying at all, and then there is that.

Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C³

Did you think three four-panel manga adaptations was enough? You silly boy, it’s the summer season! Have another one! The rather unfortunately abbreviated Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku luckily is not about a bunch of Japanese high school girls joining the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, it is just another show about a bunch of high school girls joining some random club doing nothing at all… with a twist! The “Kitakubu” in the title literally means “go home club”, which is a Japanese slang term used to indicate people who are not in any club and go home right after classes end. So that makes this a show about girls in a club that doesn’t do anything not doing anything. Whoa, that’s deep. Equally bizarre seems to be Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C³, or C³ Club for the sane of mind, some sort of wacky hybrid of moe slice-of-life and badass action. Gainax being in charge doesn’t mean jack shit anymore, but I love the sketchy promo art for this show, and the premise could actually make for a pretty fun action comedy. I am intrigued. I mean, how can you resist this trailer?

After some experimenting with two-cour shows and rerunning a show that didn’t deserve a rerun, noitaminA returns to its slice-of-life-with-actual-adults formula with Silver Spoon, a neat and warm looking show based on the manga of the same name. Penned by the author of Fullmetal Alchemist, Silver Spoon has more than one thing in common with a personal favourite of mine, Moyashimon, though seems to focus more on the broader topic of argiculture rather than being oddly fixated on teaching you completely pointless trivia on bacteriae and alcohol. It’s not the kind of show you usually see on TV, so this could turn out to be my kind of show alright. The same can be said for Uchouten Kazoku. Based on a novel by the creator of The Tatami Galaxy, this story about a forest-dwelling family of shape-shifters in a world where human live together with all sorts of mythological creatures looks to be another off-kilter dramedy with unconventional character designs. I, for one, welcome our new hipster overlords.

Free!

Of course, in terms of defying expectations, there is very little that can beat Free! Only rarely do we see a project being announced that so explicitly dares, and judging by some of the reactions, Kyoto Animation seems to have created just the kind of hype they wanted. While they are anything but perfect, KyoAni’s slice-of-life shows still carry a certain charm few others can replicate. The announcement of Free! was a brilliant troll move, yet I have no doubts KyoAni will actually deliver on it as well. As always, I expect a fun, casual show with little real ambition, but at least the decision to kick girls out of the cast was a leap compared to the baby steps away from the cute girls doing cute things formula that Love, Chunibyou and Other Delusions and Tamako Market were. Bring on those yummy boys.

Free! is far from the only show next season with dashing gentlemen, though. Brother’s Conflict is basically Baby Princess, only with dudes and not in 3D, and therefore infinitely better yet still nowhere near worth watching. The token supernatural action show with pretty boys slot belongs to Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist, a rather complex, gothic tale helmed by Chiaki Kon, who has made a name for herself directing exactly this kind of shows. On the other side of the spectrum, there is It’s Not My Fault I’m Not Popular, that seems to be set on warning girls not to watch too many shows with pretty boys in it. Based on the enjoyable low-budget manga about the misadventures of otomege addict Tomoko Kuroki, I cannot imagine WataMote being anything but a series of flash-animated five-minute shorts. Seeing some of the jokes voiced and animated could be fun, but I really don’t see why I should bother with these five minutes when I can read the manga in even less.

Il Sole Penetra le Illusioni

What else is oddly fashionable this summer? Magical girls, apparently. If I end up watching Gen’ei O Kakeru Taiyou (The Sun Penetrates the Illusions), you can be damn sure I’ll insist on calling it by its pompous Italian name, Il Sole Penetra le Illusioni. I won’t watch it, though, because despite an original art style, this looks like the world’s most generic magical girl show this side of Precure, made by a bunch of hacks. Equally bleh looks Futari wa Milky Holmes, although I must I admit that I completely adored the two seasons of Detective Opera Milky Holmes. They were completely bonkers, absurd fun, and one of the very few anime I still find legitimately funny, despite operating entirely on the tried-and-true formulae of slapstick and people being massive idiots. Futari wa Milky Holmes, however, is a Milky Holmes played straight, a sequel to the boring-as-heck Alternative OVA that showed the Milky Holmes girls being actual magical girl detectives working together with a blank slate of a male protagonist (who had been cut from the previous two seasons) to solve actual mysteries. Sherlock, Cordelia, Nero and Elly being competent? That’s about as big a betrayal as making Haruhi Suzumiya a nice girl.

Still, could be worse. At least Futari wa Milky Holmes is still roughly about the same thing as the first two seasons were. The same cannot be said of Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma☆ Ilya, a spin-off the existence of which has baffled me to this date. The fact that this is getting an anime just pisses me off. A shameless cash-in spin-off centred around a character that is nothing more than a villainous, backstabbing psychopath, suddenly being turned into a moe icon and embraced by fans I can’t even believe were smart enough to actually understand what the heck happened in Fate/Stay Night. Filled with fanservice and generic school antics, Prisma Ilya has absolutely nothing to do with the franchise it will leech its popularity off. Let’s hope it indeed lives up to its name and never becomes more than a mere liner note.

Do not panic, though. If you are desperately craving for some magical action, there are plenty other shows that will fill your quota and not get you arrested. Blood Lad is the adaptation of a fairly popular seinen manga by Brain’s Base, a company that hardly ever fails to deliver. Nevertheless, I’m having a hard time getting excited for shows like this. They will only remind me of how much better Soul Eater was. Aside from that, there is Fantasista Doll. The fact that no one at Studio Hoods was smart enough to not air this at the same time as that other, way more popular anime about magical dolls, however, proves that I should probably not have the slightest interest in this anime.

Rozen Maiden

In case you did not know, that other, way more popular about magical dolls is called Rozen Maiden. What no one knows, however, is whether this new project is supposed to be a third season or a reboot. I have not watched the original two seasons of every gothic lolita’s wet dream, but if this is indeed a brand-new adaptation, colour me fascinated. The crew looks fresh and promising and having the character designer from Steins;Gate on board is a nice addition. It would be interesting to jump into the franchise by means of a reboot. Heck, I’ll even stomach the deadly cocktail of Studio Deen and Ali Project for it. Speaking of reboots, however, there is another one that looks even more interesting. Following in the footsteps of Casshern Sins, Gatchaman Crowds is a new adaptation intended to reintroduce the seventies superhero icons to an all new audience. With stylish character designs and Kenji Nakamura, the guy behind Trapeze, Tsuritama and Serial Experiments Lain in the director’s seat, this show will prove at the very least an interesting watch. Let’s hope Nakamura can deliver a product that lives up to the legacy of its franchise.

Two other much-anticipated adaptations are Dangan Ronpa and Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Animation. I have a hard time caring about either franchise for the simple reason that the former is insanely popular amongst the kind of people who live on Tumblr and think Sword Art Online was the second coming of Christ, and the latter is about personified game consoles skipping around in their pants. While I may be a bit too harsh on Dangan Ronpa, any chance I may want to give it is ruined by the fact that super high-school level director Seiji Kishi is in charge, the man who did not even manage to make a proper adaptation of the best video game of all time. Judging from the premise of the original, Ace Attorney-esque game, a proper balancing of tension and comedy seems to be an integral part of Dangan Ronpa and let that be just the thing Kishi is absolutely horrible at. Preferably, I would like to get to know the admittedly pretty interesting looking franchise by playing the game on my own. Go, my biased views, go!

Monogatari Series: Second Season

Then there is still a bunch of second seasons to a bunch of shows I do not care about. Hakkenden and Kingdom take the cake for shows that get a second season without anyone watching them, and also Genshiken returns after almost more than half a decade of absence. Another long-awaited return is that of The World God Only Knows. The third season will apparently adapt the Goddesses arc, which is strange because at least two of the main characters in that arc show up in chapters the anime will be conveniently ignoring in order to skip directly to this fan-favourite arc. When I say fan-favourite, that usually means that everyone but me loves it, because I am sick and tired of TWGOK and it’s inability to decide whether it wants to make fun of harem shows or be one. Speaking of shows I am sick and tired of, the Monogatari franchise returns as well, much to my dismay. Call me back when you’re done trying to shove your own head up your arse and start having an actual story to tell, Monogatari. And no, “latent paedophile has to try very hard not to cheat on his sadistic girlfriend with his own sisters” is not a story.

Speaking of paedophiles, the crew of Ro-Kyu-Bu! has somehow managed to escape being arrsted and has churned out another season of creepy drooling over elementary school girls. Another show I wish would have remained in oblivion for all of eternity is Senki Zesshou Symphogear, but no that one is miraculously returning as well, as is my migraine. Five minute shorts Recorder and Randsell, Teekyu and Senyuu, according to experts Yamakan’s best work since the Haruhi ending sequence, return too. In fact, the only return I am somewhat looking forward to is Tamayura, the best slice-of-life show to watch when there is no Hidamari Sketch on air. The new season is inappropriately titled “more agressive”. Trust me when I tell you Tamayura is the least agressive show in the universe.

That quick aside finally brings an end to this hefty post. I hope you enjoyed this post and that it helped you decide on what to watch next season. So what will it be? Make sure to let me know in the comments section. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go stuff this blog back in the dusty bin where’s it’s been lying for the last year or so.